DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Session

February 28, 2026, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

After planning out the next few sessions' heisting, we take a quick relaxing trip to West Haven to repair our relations with Magister Andraste Netyoine.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Preparing for the auction
  3. Embersia goes shopping
  4. To House Byron
  5. Next session

Last session

A.R.N. has hired us to "decommission" a self-portrait he made in his youth, which carries in it a copy of his self from that time. He wishes it to no longer be alive. It's up for auction at a very expensive black-market auction house, which we will need to infiltrate and suborn.

This black-market auction house operates on a peculiar model: if you sell something there, after you die, they repossess it and resell it. They know who's sponsored our attendance, and who we are, and we're going to need to be on our best behavior.

Preparing for the auction

We discuss things, and decide we need:

Where is the auction house?
Dunno
Where are items taken after the auction?
The Ruba Arnete, where the money and item exchange occur at an art gallery.
Where is the Ruba Arnete?
Within the same area of the Roslyn Ilis.
We could stake it out, and steal from there before the sales?
Yep.
We could impersonate the person who bought it?
How would you know? There's a disguise potion.

Embersia goes shopping

With a helping of gold from Jerry's party funds, and Ryltar's messaging, we get:

Yesterday, Embersia asked::

"Where should we go to get some time alone with A.R.N.'s painting at the auction?"

A sense of calm comes to Embersia, a liminal space with Bahamut giving guidance. She hears: "Five portals to step through: each sealed by stone, and stone its guardian. Avoid the sixth.

Today:

"Where is A.R.N.'s painting stored at the auction?"

In that liminal space, she looks upon the painting. It's a Victorian self-portrait, regal, posed, distinctively A.R.N. but younger. The painting is bound in rope to a stone arch that surrounds it, and as she looks upon it, a giant eye opens in front of her. She pulls back. Stone, stone, stone, hallways, a spiraling hallway, stone stone stone, a red carpet, stone stone, a flood of light, and then she's back out to the world. As she was reeling back, each jump through stone gives her the glimpse of something on the edge of her vision. Perhaps the stone is more than 5' deep. If the painting were in a storeroom close to the gallery, there wouldn't be as much intermission between them.

What was that eye?

Winifred believes that the auction house is underground somewhere. So we'll all need to go in.

To House Byron

We Teleport to House Byron, using Mythcarver as the focus.

Everything seems normal. The receiving room is decorated with the banners of House Byron. It's understandable that the House would have a Teleportation Circle landing room.

Percival leads us into the house proper. There are signs of attacks, but not of serious destruction. It is unusual that we haven't seen any servants or guards so far.

Percival claps his hands and clears his throat. It echoes down the empty hallways.

He leads us to his sister's chambers. The only indication we have that there has been an attack is that the door is swung wide, and on the door, there are multiple scratches. Furniture has been pushed aside, and rugs moved, to leave traces of a chalk circle.

Ryltar looks at the circle: what remains of the sigil is unknown to him. And even if he saw the whole thing, he wouldn't know where it went unless he was intimately familiar with it.

Percival sends a Sending to Meredith. "Where are you?"

"We are safe within the Woven Council."

So now:

We message Bugfood, asking him if he's okay and how the area he's in is.

"Hi Percival! We're safe. It's not as bad as it could have been. The temple is destroyed, but people were moving away from it anyways. Cannerock could use investigation. Haven't heard from them in a while." That's the temple of Umberlee.

We don't have an easy way of going there, and we don't plan to do anything particularly risky before the auction.

But we're in West Haven anyways, so Jerry suggests we go talk to Magister Andraste Netyoine, who was annoyed that we weren't able to come help him save the city. As we walk through town, we see that people are rebuilding and repairing; they're bouncing back from what happened. This wasn't hit as badly as Quadroads, or targeted as specifically as South Haven.

When we're a little ways away from the cathedral, Percival makes himself Glib.

As we approach the Magister's office, it seems like people are looking at us with understanding, begrudgingly, and then looking away. But we are allowed audience.

Andraste isn't in his office; he's in a meeting room that has become a command post, a war room. There is a map of the city. He's receiving reports on progress and other forms of communication across the city. Information floods in; orders are given out.

He looks up, makes eye contact with each of us, and then goes back to working. Percival gives him his best humble-sorry puppy-dog eyes. But Andraste is looking back to his work.

Jerry ushers the party to the side of the room, and waits until someone is free, and quietly asks that someone: "Where can we go to help? Or where can we go to learn where we can help?"

The person Jerry asks hesitates, and looks over to Andraste, and Andraste is glaring at us. Andraste calls us over. "Knights."

Jerry goes over. The rest of the Party follows.

"Report."

Jerry leads with "Belladonna has become more powerful over the last day." She recounts what has been lost, and that we need to be someplace else tomorrow. She wraps up with. "We simply could not get here in time. And so: What can we do here today, this evening?"

"Those of the lycanthropic persuasion have been routed. Reports still come in of those who have instigated this attack have been dealt with, and those who have been afflicted are being tended to. If you have the ability to do either of those…"

Jerry offers Embersia the opportunity to stay here and do healing; she elects to come with the Party. Jerry introduces her to him, and then asks where we should go.

There's a war map with wooden tokens marking it. "We were able to rout these away from the central residential areas. They have retreated into the sewers and into the outskirts. Those who have been afflicted are being directed to the arena, to be taken care of by those able to. There's one area that's particularly dense with enemy markers, which hasn't been addressed quite yet.

We ask, and are directed to meet with Lieutenant Fora, in charge of that area.

Percival's 26 Investigation check reveals that this area is more typical of the lower-class areas. He sidles up to Jerry and says, "Be careful! That's the poor part of town." "Excellent!" says Jerry. "You know where we're going. Lead on."

During our walk, there's been a noticeable increase in guard presence and activity. Deeper in, they're clearly sweeping the area, moving in pairs, a group of 8. One is giving directions and orders; this is Lieutenant Fora. He's a middle-aged wood elf. There's signs on his armor and spear that they have been in the fight recently.

After some questioning of Lieutenant Fora, we go into the sewers with a license to kill.

Embersia's spear immediately alerts her before three humanoid creatures leap out to start attacking.

  1. Round 1
    1. Percival opens negotiations with Fireball. All three rats fail, and squeak in pain. He then inspires Jerry.
    2. Ryltar uses Fairy Fire; one is now glowing bluish-purple.
    3. Jerry does some slicing and dicing; there is no longer a glowing bluish-purple rat.
    4. Embersia kills the least-alive rat.
    5. Rat bites at Jerry and slashes with claws, but doesn't get through her defenses. Then it bolts, and takes some damage from her follow-up slash.
  2. Round 2: kaboom
    1. Percival launches his Storm Boomerang, 7 bludgeoning and 11 bludgeoning. The rat falls over with a pathetic squeak.

There is a sound of scurrying away from us.

Jerry hears multiple groups, converging down into one area. "We're going to go over there, quietly, stealthily, and then we're going to [Dwarvish: Open a new ore vein under their ass]." Pass Without Trace and Percival hits 40.

And then we get to the place where there's packs of were-rats congregating in the area. There's one clear leader rat in the middle, issuing orders. It's about a 30' room. There are 8 were-rats in the room, and by the end of our first round of Slow, Fireball, Flame Strike, Lightning Arrow, there are 5 left, including the leader.

  1. Round 1.
    1. The leader fires a hand crossbow at Jerry for 11 piercing.
    2. Two others run up to bite and scratch at Jerry, dealing 8 to her.
    3. Ryltar freezes one of those.
    4. Embersia barbecues the other.
    5. Jerry runs over to the trio and attacks the two not-leaders, dealing 17 and 18 respectively. "Leave the leader alive," says Jerry.
    6. Percival uses Mythcarver to stab one in the chest. There's a sonic boom sound and his chest collapses.
  2. Round 2.
    1. The leader, still slowed, hits Percival and Jerry with his claws. Jerry feels something crawl under her skin.
    2. The rat in front of Percival turns into an ice cube.
    3. Embersia intimidates the rat leader.
    4. Jerry tells Embersia to heal her of the were-rat curse, then intimidates the were-rat leader.
    5. Percival Holds Monster
  3. Round 3
    1. The leader is too frightened to speak.
    2. Ryltar does some more intimidation.
    3. Jerry chains up the leader, and begins interrogation.

There's some interrogation — the rat is surprised that we know of her — but he's not willing to talk about why or how. She's freedom. We decide to take him back up to the Magister, at which point he turns into a tiny rat and runs off. Web doesn't catch him due to dexterity; Ensnaring Strike with a dart removes the were-rat's remaining hit point.

We spend a little more time walking around the sewers, and find nothing.

We go back up to the Magister's office, where those who can Remove Curse are ordered to the arena. So we go there.

Jerry gets in line to have her curse removed; she's very early in the curse's progression. But eventually her curse is removed.

We have one more teleport this day, which we use to go to Sky Diamond Academy's Sky Diamond Academy.

Next session